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2008 - NSW Glendonbrook, NSW

WHILE the majority of scientists do not acknowledge their existence, a leading cryptozoologist believes a Glendonbrook property was recently visited by a yowie.

After receiving some photographs taken by Glendonbrook resident Lloyd Stapleton of some strange footprints found on his property, cryptozoologist (person who studies animals whose existence is disputed) and environmental scientist, Professor Gary Opit, said the shape and size of the footprints had the hallmarks of a yowie.

"From my viewing of the photos, the footprints were made by a large bipedal (two legged) animal, and in my opinion, more than likely a yowie," Professor Opit said.

"It appears as if the yowie has leapt over Mr Stapleton's gates and landed quite heavily on the balls of its right foot, not flat footed, and this left a deep impression.

"There is another print of its left foot and then it appears to have walked onto the grass."

The photos were sent to Professor Opit after a number of zoos and museums were unable to identify the footprints.

The yowie, the Australian version of the yeti / big foot, has been dismissed by most scientists as a myth because of a lack of physical evidence.

Professor Opit believes that yowies are a descendant from the genus Australopithecus, which were closely related to humans, stand around two metres tall, and are highly intelligent, ambush predators, eating mainly kangaroos, possums and bandicoots.

He believes that yowies were once in abundant numbers in Australia, but were hunted into near extinction by Aborigines and dingoes.

However, with no hunting threats for quite some time, their numbers have begun to grow, which has resulted in increased sightings by people.

"Most people don't believe they exist for one second but I'm fortunate that I've actually seen one and heard their calls," Professor Opit said.

"And so many people have contacted me with reports, I can't say they are all hoaxes."

While initially disbelieving of the fact he had a yowie visiting him, Mr Stapleton said a number of strange occurrences, other than the footprints, led him to suspect that there was something out of the ordinary getting around on his property.

"A few years ago, I heard a growling near the tree line when I was doing some work on my shed at night," he said.

"I'd never heard anything like it before, it was too big a volume in noise to be a dog.

"It frightened the daylights out of my two German Shepherds who were with me at the time.

"Also, at the top of the mountain, the dams are full and there is plenty of feed for the cows but nowadays they choose to stay down near the house.

"It's strange that they would just leave it."

Mr Stapleton said he took the recent photographs the morning after a particularly wet storm in April.

"The creek that night was four and a half to five metres deep and 120 to 130 metres wide, so I'm pretty sure it would have been a very big effort to go to if it was someone playing a practical joke," he said.